Loading...
Christian Visions and Sozomen’s Julian
Hanaghan, Michael P.
Hanaghan, Michael P.
Citations
Altmetric:
Author
Abstract
This article proposes that the visions in Sozomen’s account of Julian’s reign may be read as an attempt to narrativize a response to Julian’s criticisms of Christianity. This overarching claim is supported by broader considerations of how Sozomen’s history contradicts or confronts other Julianic claims. These include Sozomen’s repeated reference to Julian’s persecutions, despite Julian’s expressed interest in not overtly persecuting Christians, his wide-ranging interest in the localization of miracles at the martyrs’ tombs or in connection with relics, and his marked interested in the ethnography of conversion, evident in his detailed accounts of the conversion to Christianity of whole people groups (ἔθνη). The latter amounts to an implicitly barbed attack on Julian’s claims that the members of different peoples had different natures so that they could not be changed by external legislation.
Keywords
Date
2021
Type
Journal article
Journal
Studia Patristica
Book
Volume
128
Issue
25
Page Range
167-179
Article Number
ACU Department
Institute for Religion and Critical Inquiry
Faculty of Theology and Philosophy
Faculty of Theology and Philosophy
Collections
Relation URI
DOI
Source URL
Event URL
Open Access Status
License
All rights reserved
File Access
Controlled